The White House is seeking to cut more than $2.5 billion from the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency – an overall reduction of more than 23 percent.

The fiscal 2019 proposal released Monday marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to shrink the reach of an agency that the president once promised to reduce to “little tidbits.” The EPA already has lost hundreds of employees to buyouts and retirements over the past year, and its staffing is now at Reagan-era levels.

Under the latest budget, the agency would continue to shrink in size and ambition, leaving much more of the work of environmental protection to individual states. The administration said Monday that its proposal will help “return the EPA to its core mission,” reduce “unnecessary reporting burdens on the regulated community” and eliminate programs that “create unnecessary redundancies or those that have served their purpose and accomplished their mission.”

But environmental groups on Monday were quick to criticize the proposal, calling it a thinly veiled attempt to gut federal environmental safeguards.

“The Trump administration budget released today is a blueprint for a less healthy, more polluted America,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “A budget shows your values – and this budget shows the administration doesn’t value clean air, clean water, or protecting Americans from toxic pollution.”

“The Trump administration budget released today is a blueprint for a less healthy, more polluted America,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “A budget shows your values – and this budget shows the administration doesn’t value clean air, clean water, or protecting Americans from toxic pollution.”

The administration’s plan would cut several dozen programs altogether. Among them: funding for state radon-detection initiatives, assistance to fund water system improvements along the U.S.-Mexico border and partnerships to monitor and restore water quality in the Gulf of Mexico, Puget Sound and other large water bodies. Funding for restoration of the Chesapeake Bay would fall from $72 million to $7 million, and a similar program for the Great Lakes would be cut from $300 million to $30 million – though neither would be completely wiped out.

The head of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation called the proposal “another assault on clean water, from a president who campaigned saying he valued it.”

“This is yet another assault on clean water, from a President who campaigned saying he valued it. This Budget does not add up. This administration says they want to partner with states, but a 90 percent budget reduction says the opposite.” https://t.co/4fGcjhyNEv #TrumpBudget

— Chesapeake Bay Found (@chesapeakebay) February 12, 2018

“This administration says they want to partner with states, but a 90 percent budget reduction says the opposite,” William Baker said in a statement. “The Chesapeake Bay Program is the glue that holds…